And Justice for All
by SuperKat
Summary: Fifteen years later, you’d think things would be different. But, as Donnie pointed out, the collective mind is not so easily swayed. One-shot.


**DISCLAIMER**: I never claimed to own them. The turtles, Splinter, Angel, Casey, April, even their freaking children aren't mine. They belong to Eastman and Laird and probably some rich guys in Fox also. Not me. No earned money, no intended infringement, no suing. Sound good?

**SUMMARY**: Fifteen years later, you'd think things would be different. But, as Donnie pointed out, the collective mind is not so easily swayed. Oneshot.

**WARNING:** Some swearing. Some beer drinking, but everyone is of legal age. Also, this story is a metaphor. Some people won't like it. That is why God invented the back button.

-*-*-*-

"It's psychology," Donnie said over the top of the television set. "Textbook psychology. Literally: open any publication on basic social cognition and you'll find it. Implicit prejudice. Ingroup-outgroup bias, right down to the core of the subconscious."

Sometimes talking to Donnie was like trying to do a crossword puzzle with the TV on. It wasn't often that it gripped him with this dull fascination, grabbed him by the neck and forced him to process every word. It wasn't even interest that kept him captivated this time, because to Mikey, psychology was anything but. Mostly it was a sort of morbid fascination for Donnie's ability to sit there in the wake of everything that had happened and be able to explain scientifically why it shouldn't matter as much as it actually did.

"So what's it mean," Mikey said in a tone that was not questioning, because by now they both knew that he knew, and that listening to Donnie's explanation was only a buffer to keep him from thinking on his own. Because as long as the genius was busy explaining it with his ten-cent words, it could stay fact. It didn't have to become truth just yet.

"It means people are people," Donnie brushed the palm of his hand against his forehead, "and history is doing the same thing it has always done. One step forward, two steps back. They can say whatever they want because it's easy, but when it comes down to it, they're terrified because they don't understand."

"Doesn't make it okay," Mikey mumbled, slouching on the sofa before Donnie gave him that look that always made him feel like a petulant child.

"Doesn't make it permanent, either."

Clearly, Donnie was disappointed. Had to be. There was no question that he had suffered more than any of them, but here he was, fixing the television like he had done since they were twelve years old. Stating the facts like it was just another setback, just one more flopped experiment and in the end he could go for a spin on his bike or tinker with some Utrom technology to make it all better. He had never been a teenager in that respect, yet Mikey found himself whining and moping like he hadn't aged a day in fifteen years. So he folded his arms because he refused to feel guilty about anything right now. At the very least, he had earned a good mope.

-*-

It was bullshit.

"Raph," said Leo, with that sigh he'd taken up in the last few years, that deep heave of the chest making wrinkles appear around the outside of his eyes and always reminding Raph of Sensei in their earlier days. "You could at least pretend you're aware that Master Splinter's in earshot."

Whatever. Didn't change anything.

"No," said Leo, resting one hand against the wall and studying the ceiling. "I don't imagine it does."

Raph flung his sai into the opposite wall and watched as tiny cracks spread from the point of contact like spider legs. He was done talking.

Sometime around twenty or so, Raphael had found himself in some kind of emotional lapse where he stopped punching the pillars of the lair, quit baring his fists and teeth every time someone crossed him, and no longer fell into that pit of darkness where something that Sensei called "rage," Leo called "hot-headedness" and Casey called "fun" took hold and made him act. Then, a few years years ago, he had started seeing red again and since then it had been a constant struggle not to regress, all the while sliding and slipping back into something that felt like a suit that had gotten too small.

"You're right," said Leo, not even taking a second glance at the red handle sticking out of the stone. "About what it is."

"Yeah," said Raph, letting a dark half-smile quirk the side of his mouth as he crossed the dojo. "And what is that, exactly?"

Leo smiled wryly and said nothing for a moment, while Raphael gripped the hilt of his sai and pulled. Pieces of rock and dust fell unnoticed to the floor.

"Better than it could have been," Leo said finally. Raph's smile vanished.

"I don't care about what it could have been," he growled. "I care about what it is. What it _isn't._"

"You have to admit," said Leo. "That in a way, we're lucky. It could have been so much worse."

Raph said nothing. He was done talking.

-*-

"Would it make you feel better," Donnie had said, "to go topside and get me a new cable?" He'd had that look in his eye; that glint he got when Mikey's unrelenting attentions had finally reached Donnie's core. Ten years ago it would have been victory. Five years ago it was still fun. This morning, Mikey had frowned and tried to decide if he felt up to facing salespeople.

"Nothing in the junkyard run?"

Donnie had held up a cable that was frayed, bent and stained on one side with something yellowish-brown. Mikey knew better than to ask what kind of liquid could turn metal that color.

"Believe it or not," Don had said with a hint of laughter Mikey could neither understand nor find it in himself to mirror, "this was the best of my options. Salvageable transmitter? No problem. Simple TV cable? Nothing. It sure says something about humans, doesn't it?"

Mikey had frowned at that point, narrowing his eyes and glaring at his toes in a way he never did.

"Yeah," he had said. "It does."

On his way out, he had paused by the coat rack. It hadn't been touched in years, hadn't been needed in a refreshingly long time. He had grabbed a trenchcoat and hat out of spite before he stormed out.

-*-

April was dusting off a suit of armor in the corner when they arrived. Two men, older, with hunter's caps and flannel shirts. They circled the store in the customary counter-clockwise fashion – which always surprised her because there was no sign, no arrow, yet every customer always took the same path around the shop – pointing to various things and muttering to each other. A necklace on a dummy, a steel trap from circa 1850. An Indian head penny.

It wasn't until they got behind her that she heard what they were saying. One of them had picked up a bronze statue. Some kind of ancient God with bared teeth and a long tail. April should have remembered what it was, but its identity had disappeared in the ebb and flow of names and dates she tried to keep on file in her mind and inevitably could not. So she kept her attention on her cleaning and braced herself for the bright smile and feigned confidence she used to inform customers about an item she knew very little about. The question would never come.

"Looks like one of them things," said one of the hunters. "Them crazy animal freaks what thought they could be one of us." The other man chuckled.

"You know what them things looks like?" said the other man.

"Course I do," said the first man. "Like this." He held the statue in the face of the other man, who held up his hands and flinched.

"Get that stuff away from me," he said. "Gives me the shivers."

"Sick," said the first man, shaking his head. "Just sick." They chuckled together.

April set the duster on the countertop. Turning to face them, she kept her expression calm and devoid of emotion.

"Do you see anything you'd be interested in buying today?" she asked them in her best salesperson voice. They shook their heads. "Then I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave, because the store is closing early."

"What?" said one man, "it's not even ten-thirty."

"_Very_ early," said April. She had to restrain herself from taking them by the shoulders and shooing them to the front door.

"Wait," said the first man. "Is this about what we was sayin'? Because it's true, you know. Freaks like that ain't got no place in civilization."

"Out!" April cried. "Get out! And take your filthy prejudices with you!" The bells on the door jingled as the two men left, leaving the store empty and it's keeper standing triumphant, her hands on her hips and a satisfied smile on her face.

April opened her eyes.

Her chin rested on her palms, her elbows braced against the countertop. A pair of woman stood outside the front window pointing at the antiques on display and whispering to one another. It had been a relatively slow morning.

"Filthy prejudices?" she whispered to herself. On reflection, she decided that if such an encounter were to actually take place, highly unlikely though it may have been, she would have to think of something better to say.

The first few times, the fantasy had been satisfying. In one version, the hunters had been a couple in gray clothing with matching cross necklaces and King James Bibles under their arms. They had lectured her on the wickedness of her ways and she had magically discovered that she knew word-for-word every biblical passage about equality and unconditional love. After listening to her rattle them off in quick succession, the couple, their eyes agape and the tips of their ears turning red, had turned around with a distinct hunch in their posture. In another version, they had been an old lady with a black cap and angry, gravely voice saying that women shouldn't run stores and giant turtles shouldn't be roaming the streets, and neither should those hooligans with brown skin or spiked hair. Crossing the street, the woman had nearly been hit by a runaway bus before Leo – or Raph or Don or Mikey, it didn't really matter as long as he had green skin and a shell on his back – had swooped in and saved her life. April didn't like that one as much, because she didn't have as much control. Too many variables.

In truth, she realized as the women moved on to another store, it was never going to happen like she wanted, and the original problem of not having enough control wasn't going to be solved no matter what she did.

-*-

Back in their early days, Leo had found Raph's bouts of anger frustrating. He tried so hard to reach him and never wanted to admit to himself that it was futile. These days, Raph's anger was relaxing, almost like watching someone else channel Leo's own emotions. At first, the thought that neo-rage Raphael represented part of Leonardo had frightened him, but eventually he had slipped into the dull, listless acceptance that came with adulthood.

"I don't get it," he had said with something akin to a growl, "what's it to them, anyway?"

Leo shook his head.

-*-

He didn't remember that day because at the time he had been in what Mikey called his "happy phase." He remembered it because it had been a three-digit number on that piece of paper, which had completely thrown him. He remembered because in the weeks building up to it, he had called the whole thing stupid and pointless, but after it happened, he found himself dry-mouthed and speechless and had suddenly understood why it mattered so much. He remembered that day because all of them – even Mikey – had scored above average and there was something satisfying about being smarter than half the human race.

He didn't remember it because Donnie had scored in the 99.999999th percentile, because only Donnie and the administrators had been surprised about that. He remembered because in the days following, everything had happened so quickly and all of a sudden Donnie and Leatherhead were having long and dizzyingly complicated discussions with scientists from Harvard and Stamford and Oxford and Henry-ford or whatever, and before they knew it, questions about sentience and cognition weren't questions anymore.

The first day Raphael walked the streets of Manhattan in broad daylight was a day he would remember for the rest of his life. Not because the pair of boxing gloves he had bought from the flabbergasted shopkeeper had been red like his mask. Not even because a nice group of college students had moved to make room for him on the subway – which he had secretly always wanted to experience from the inside – or because some little boy had pointed to him unabashedly and cried, "Mommy, mommy, look! It's a dinosaur!" But because the whole thing had been entirely uneventful, and that was a victory worth far more than any silly number.

-*-

Leatherhead wasn't in the mood for conversation. Especially not tonight, and especially not with humans. One night of solitude shouldn't have been too much to ask in the wake of everything he had lost.

Except that according to the blinking red light next to the monitor and the box that popped up saying 'INCOMING: WEBSTER, PROF. ALBERT J., it was. Leatherhead, feeling his insides begin to shrink, pressed "okay."

"What can I do for you?" he asked the elderly man on the screen, though a dark part of him already suspected and was bracing himself for the news.

The professor took a deep breath. "In light of…recent developments…" Leatherhead's insides continued to shrink. "We have some…requests…to make regarding your lecture on Tuesday."

"It is…still scheduled, then?" Leatherhead's heart skipped, but he fought to keep his tone calm and even, as if too much excitement in his voice would ruin it.

"Yes," said the professor. "Your personal perspective on the Outbreak mutations of 2004 are invaluable, drawing attention from students and teachers even outside the genetics department. It will be one of the most well-attended lectures of this semester, I can say even now with great confidence. You are the man who… er… well you are the... you witnessed the effects of the virus firsthand, and of course eventually cured it yourself. The knowledge you can bring to the subject exceeds any political movements. Matters of your payment will have to be undertaken with more care, but the board is confident that we will be able to compensate you for your time as originally discussed."

Feeling considerably lighter, Leatherhead thanked the professor and asked, "What is it you would like to request?"

"Right," said the professor. "Regarding recent developments in New York State legislation, we wish to remind you that your lecture topic concerns science only. We ask that you discuss only the mutations of '04 and information that you feel supplements the topic. Any comments dealing with potential political ramifications of this event or more recent events would not be welcomed, and could in fact cause unwanted controversy at the expense of the University."

"Of course," said Leatherhead. "Recent legislation has no place in Tuesday's lecture. I am well aware."

"Good," said the professor, "You will understand, then, why we are asking for a copy of your presentation in advance. I will need to submit it for approval to the board by Monday morning."

Leatherhead forced his expression to remain stoic. He tried not to let himself feel stung.

"Of course," he said with a single, curt nod. The professor thanked him and the screen went dark. Leatherhead's chair scraped across the concrete floor as he stood up. Walking carefully to the edge of his lair, he took deep breaths and tried to calm his spirits as he had learned to do so many years ago. As his insides began to boil, he rested his forehead against the cold stone and let out a roar that made the rafters tremble.

-*-

Casey was having a bad day.

For one thing, he hated the bus. It was crowed, and someone was always chewing gum too loudly, or chatting on their cell phone about Auntie Wilma's warts, and that fat guy in the doorway couldn't find it in himself to use a breath mint or some anti-perspirant once in a while. For another, he had been stuck all day with the mental image of Raphael sitting on the couch in front of the TV, his arms folded across his chest, sinking lower and lower into a dark place that his brothers, Angel, and eventually even Casey, couldn't follow.

All the while, Casey had stared at the numbers on the screen, thinking that he'd pummeled creeps for pulling crap that was less cruel than this.

Watching Mikey turn down the last slice of pizza, defeat reaching from his eyes all the way down to his toes, Casey had felt a flair the likes of which he hadn't felt since before he'd met the turtles; the kind of adrenaline-laced fury that took him by the gut and forced him to move. Fifty-two percent of the state of New York was a lot of people, sure, but he liked projects. He'd spent twenty-years of his life trying to take down the Purple Dragons; futility didn't phase him.

He was making fists again. Casey took a deep breath and forced his fingers to relax. Physical assault wasn't going to change anything; he knew because April had said it to him time and time again when the reality was she wanted the same thing he did.

The bus jerked to a stop, and Casey nearly struck his forehead against the seat in front of him. A young couple with two babies climbed aboard.

"It's not like I'd…you know… react harshly …if I saw one," the woman was saying. The man nodded grimly. "I'm not prejudiced or anything. I just feel that they should be allowed to live their lives in the same way that I'm allowed to live mine. Separate. Uninterrupted. I mean," she shifted the sleeping child in her arms from one shoulder to the other before she sat in the seat behind Casey, "Give me one good reason why I should have to see one of those…things… while I'm trying to run my errands and have a normal day. Should I have to spend my time worrying that my children are being exposed to them while they're at school? No. They can live their lives, I have no problem with that, as long as they don't flaunt it in public and they let me live mine."

Red laced the edge of Casey's vision and he whirled around in his seat. "Excuse me," he said. "But flaunt what, exactly?"

The young woman wore pearl earrings that were larger than her earlobes. She glared at him. "If you don't mind," she said, "my children are trying to sleep, and I would appreciate not having strangers yelling in their faces."

Don't take the bait, said a little voice in the back of Casey's head. Just don't.

-*-

"It's psychology," Donnie was saying, "classic. Psychological baby steps, only on a social scale. Two hundred years ago, African Americans were kept as slaves. In the 1960's they weren't allowed to sit in the front seats of the bus. In the early 2000's they were shot at when police officers mistook their wallets for guns. That's how it works. Humankind wasn't built to completely overhaul its system of thought overnight."

The baby monitor on the coffee table crackled. April picked it up, listening for more noise, and hearing nothing, set it down again. Her eyes were grim, expressionless, as she watched Donatello speak. Sitting at the kitchen table with a shell cell in pieces spread out in front of him, he waved the hand holding a screwdriver as if it helped prove his point.

"It was the same thing with women," Don continued with a brief nod in her direction. "How many years elapsed between the time you were considered property and the year you obtained the right to vote? Certainly more than five. Expecting anything different this time around would mean disregarding the basic facts."

April nodded, wondering how long those creases had been across his forehead. They stood out in the artificial light, especially when he bowed his head to continue his work. She could think of nothing to say, so for a moment they let the apartment sink into contented silence.

"What I don't understand," said Donatello, looking up one more time, "is how people can continue with this pattern and not see it repeating." Cupping his chin in his hand as if it was all one big puzzle for him to unravel, he frowned and said, "You know what I mean? It escapes me, how people can study their nation's history, see what they've done in the past, see what they're doing now and still say that this time is different."

April shook her head slowly, considering.

-*-

"You shouldn't have taken the bait," said Leo.

"Yeah, yeah." Casey took another sip of beer. Even though Leo would never touch the stuff, not in a million years, he pulled another bottle out of the refrigerator - probably Raph's, but he'd known the guys so long that they were practically his, too - and pushed it across the table to where Leo sat. Leo ignored it the way Casey knew he would. "They just ticked me off, ya know? Law or no law, they shouldn't be talkin' like that."

Leo nodded with a small, knowing smile on his lips and in his eyes. It struck Casey that sometime in the fifteen years they'd known each other, Leo had turned into Splinter and no one had noticed.

"It doesn't bother you?" Casey asked.

Leo rested his hand on the table and studied his fingertips. "I was brought up," he said in a voice that would have been infuriatingly calm if they hadn't known each other so long, "in the shadows. Taught never to expect people to accept me for what I am. Thirty years later, we have you, April, your children, Angel…Mikey can use the skate park in broad daylight, Donnie got a PHD even if he can't use it, Leatherhead is giving talks to University students, and most important of all, we still have each other." He took a long breath. "I was taught to be content with all that."

"But," said Casey, "You could've had more. You had more. April and I have been up nights fuming about it. It never gets to you, not a little bit?"

"As ninja," Leo replied, "I try my best not to let anything get to me."

More like that damn rat every day.

-*-

It didn't occur to him until after he reached the store that wearing the trenchcoat and hat might have made him more frightening than going without would have. As it was, several people did double-takes, two girls in private school uniforms openly gaped at him, and the woman standing behind them looked at his feet and turned her back.

Mikey let out a steady stream of air through his teeth as quietly as he could. Get in, get out, he thought.

This was a bad idea.

A balding man with a blue uniform and a white pin that said "RICK. MANAGER" stood in front of the counter with folded arms. "What can I help you find?" he asked in the same tone Mikey would imagine him using to accuse someone of shoplifting.

Mikey read from the piece of paper Donnie had given him, and in less than two minutes, the balding manager had emerged from the back room with a shiny, unstained version of the cable Donnie had shown him in the lair. Mikey nodded but couldn't bring himself to smile.

The manager passed it to a young woman behind the register. "Are we allowed to…" she started to ask, but as Mikey's heart skipped a beat, the manager silenced her question with a wave of his hand that Mikey suspected he wasn't supposed to notice. The clerk muttered the price to the countertop, but luckily the numbers appeared on the screen, so Mikey didn't have to ask her to repeat. She looked like she would have run away if he had. Mikey made a show of pulling the money out of his pocket slowly, just so they wouldn't get the wrong idea. Part of him wanted to accidentally-on-purpose reveal his nunchucks, to see what they would do, but in the end he resisted.

As he was leaving, the manager surprised him by following him out. He made a point of standing between Mikey and the front doors.

"This is a family store," he began, and with a sinking feeling, Mikey realized where this was going. "We have kids come in here from time to time. Young, impressionable, children. I'm sure you understand."

Fifteen years ago, Mikey would have understood. Five years ago, he would have given it a dull, washed out acceptance that came with years of expecting very little. Today, he had only the satisfaction of whirling around before Rick the manager could finish his sentence and letting the rest of the words bounce off his retreating shell.

Donnie had warned them that things like this might happen from time to time now that things had changed. He had pointed out, with his ever infuriating optimism, that they would still be integrated into the public more than they had ever dreamed, but that some people could take – "liberties" was the word he used – that they hadn't taken before. Sure, Mikey thought, kicking an empty soda can into the gutter.

Not like they mattered or anything. That right seemed reserved for citizens only.

-*-

"What I don't get," said Raphael, setting his beer on the table harder than he intended, "is why." Angel took a swig from her own bottle, and tried to find the words that would make this at all okay, before realizing that trying to make it better would only make it worse. So she said nothing.

"What's it to them, anyway?" Raph roared.

Angel shook her head. "People," she said. "We suck. I'm sorry."

Raph didn't respond.

"For what it's worth," said Angel, "almost half the state is on your side. And you know that means most of the city. The Jones are on your side." She tried to find his gaze, but he wouldn't look at her. "I'm on your side."

"Are you allowed to be?" asked Raphael.

"What?"

"Are you allowed to be with me?" he asked. "Now? Is this legal? You being a citizen and me being… a freak of nature? An official, constitutional freak of nature? You're the legal citizen. You tell me. Are we allowed to do this?"

"And since when have either of us cared about legal?" Angel asked with a wry quirk of a smile. When he didn't return it, she let her gaze get serious and her voice get quiet. "Raph," she said, laying a hand on his upper arm, "if I gave a shit about that, I wouldn't be sitting here with you. You know that."

Raph jerked away. He muttered something indecipherable before yanking open the kitchen window with more force than was necessary and disappearing into the night.

Angel closed her eyes.

-*-

The professor looked more exhausted this time around. The bags under his eyes, the new creases on his forehead, the way his hair stood up more than before, it told Leatherhead exactly what he was going to hear long before the professor had uttered his first word.

"You must understand," he was saying, which struck Leatherhead as funny because they always said that. "Must understand," as if this unwritten code should apply to him more than anyone else just because he was the only creature on earth with a PHD and claws.

"Our department office, and the office of the Dean, we've been inundated with messages. Letters, phone calls, emails, from alumni, parents, people we don't even know, people not associated with the University in any way. Funds have been cut, the reputation of the University has been put on the line, our president even received death threats yesterday afternoon."

Leatherhead said nothing.

"It's become," the professor continued, seemingly unable to look him in the eye even though they were connected only by computer screen, "a matter of personal safety. You realize we are left with no choice."

Leatherhead wanted to respond that there was always a choice, but the words got stuck in his throat and before he could open his jaw, the professor had apologized with the utmost sincerity and the screen had gone blank.

Somewhere in the back of the room, drops of water fell onto cold concrete. The sound echoed across the silent chamber as Leatherhead sat back in his seat and didn't move for a very long time.

-*-

In the end, it had been the little things, the surprises, that solidified it for them, made it real. Things like the possibility that not just Donnie and Leatherhead, but he too could have a degree. Like getting to meet the man who had dropped four baby turtles into a sewer all those years ago. Like saving the woman in Central Park and receiving thanks instead of screams. Like the call from the Make A Wish Foundation saying that a little boy in Scarsdale wanted very much to meet them. Like meeting the old blind woman Raph had known for years, seeing the look on Raph's face when she told him she had known he was different ever since his scaly, three fingered hand had touched hers, comforting him later after she died, knowing he had been at her bedside until the very end, hearing that she had left Raph everything she owned. Those things, those petty, logistically inconsequential moments had made the whole thing real.

The city, of course, had taken Mrs. Morrison's things back after the law passed.

The moment when the mayor, a hint of amusement in his eye, pointed out that the state constitution never specifically said that a citizen needed to be human in order to receive basic rights was not real. Watching the polls that night as everything slowly and methodically slipped away, that hadn't been real either. It was the loss of those little things that forced something that felt suspiciously like betrayal into his gut and refused to let go.

-*-

"Am I right," said Leo, "in thinking that?"

Usagi gripped the hilt of his sword but did not draw, as the breeze from the crest of the next hill swept around them. "You are more than entitled," he said with a grim nod. "The people of your world have indeed betrayed you. It seems a dishonorable defeat."

"I just…" Leo's hands clenched and released at his sides. "I never thought...when he told us…it never occurred to me that the people of New York would take that as their cue to make something…just because it suddenly mattered to somebody else."

"I am truly sorry, Leonardo," Usagi began. "If there's anything I can do…"

"Just being here is enough," said Leo. "Thank you for letting me come here. These breaks, these chances to see your world, they help me face mine. Now that I've let myself down…" at Usagi's questioning look he said, "Yes. I let myself down when I let myself believe we could have something better. They offered it to us and I took it, which would have been crime enough, but I wanted to take it. I became used to it. I let it be a part of my life that I depended on, and now I'm being punished. I can't go back to the way I was before all this happened." He bowed his head and winced, "because I let weakness get the better of me."

"No one," said Usagi, choosing his words carefully but knowing they would never register, "has the right to expect anything different of you."

Leonardo didn't respond.

-*-

"I just feel more comfortable, ya know?"

There was a general murmur of agreement around the table from everyone except Angel, who slumped back in her chair and scowled. Drinking with the coworkers wasn't always her night activity of choice, but Raph had been pretty much AWOL for the past few days, and she knew by now to give him space when he needed it.

"No, I know exactly what you mean," another guy was saying. "And I think all of us do, to one extent or another. We know who we are, and we know what's right." He scratched his goatee with one hand and gripped his glass of beer with the other. "Otherwise, this law wouldn't have passed. I, for one, feel safer knowing my city isn't treating these freaks the same way it treats its regular citizens. And I think that's normal."

More assent. Angel took another sip of beer.

"Exactly," said the first man. "I mean…I'm not, like, a racist or anything, you know? I mean, if I ran into one of these guys on the street, I wouldn't spit on them. I wouldn't say anything nasty, or threaten them in any way…"

Angel's mood was temporarily lifted by the mental image of this guy trying to threaten Raphael. She hid her smirk in another gulp.

"…I just don't think we have to go around dolling out citizenship like a pack of cards to every living thing that can string a couple words together. It's just not right."

"My daughter has a pet iguana," said a woman whose dark, curled hair had begun to gray at the temples. "Next thing you know, she'll be bringing him in for citizenship."

The sound of laughter, as it rose and hit its peak, sent a flare of something like fire through Angel's veins.

"You'd have to teach it to read first," she pointed out, using every ounce of will to keep her voice light. "And write. And understand language. And hold a pen."

On reflection, her last words may have sounded angrier than she intended, for the conversation fizzled into the awkward silence that only happens between semi-familiar coworkers when someone has thrown the conversation into a place no one intended it to go.

"So speaks," said the blond woman, "our resident activist." Faces were turning to her curiously.

Angel could feel her cheeks turning red.

"Don't you hang out with some of them or something?" said another woman. Eyes were growing round

"I didn't mean any offense," said the man with the goatee. "Angel gets that. Right, babe?"

Angel's eyes narrowed.

"Yes," she said, surprising herself with her own level of calm. "I get that. You are such an egalitarian that you will stretch to the level of not spitting on a mutant turtle as he walks by you. Your open-mindedness is awe-inspiring. Truly."

"Now, that's unfair," he replied, raising his eyebrows at the other men. "And you know it."

"I know," said Angel, rising, "about unfair. I've seen unfair. I am not the one being unfair." She was shouting. She couldn't stop. "You watch your government tell the one you love they can't be treated like a normal being, that they aren't welcome in this world, all because of something they can't control… you watch the look on their face when that happens, and then come back and tell me what's unfair."

"Love?" the first guy raised his eyebrows. "What are you married to him or something?"

"No," said Angel. "That's not actually an option for us. Thanks to you." Her last few words came like spit, forced through her teeth like something vile. Heart racing, adrenaline coursing through her veins, Angel spun around and left.

By the time she reached her apartment, her heart was pounding so hard that she could feel it in her temples and fingertips. She hadn't lost her temper like that since her teenage years. This whole mess was really…

She had opened the door. Thought came to a screeching halt when she felt the breeze from the open window and saw the familiar, shadowed form sitting at her kitchen table. She noticed the flowers last.

"I'm sorry," said Raphael. And he was.

Without a word, Angel threw down her keys and kissed him like she had never kissed him before.

-*-

Mikey kept his head down most of the way home. He knew what he would see and he was tired of it. Part of him considered taking the sewer or the rooftops the way he had in the old days, but now it just felt humiliating. He paused for a moment outside the skate park, watching, considering. He hadn't visited since the new law passed. He'd been too scared of what they would say to him.

About to turn around, he came face to face with a group of teenagers, many of them carrying skateboards, two or three already sporting helmets. The vast majority of faces lit up on seeing him.

"Mikey!" said the kid in front. "It's been, like, a whole week, man!"

"We thought you died," said a girl behind him.

"Where've you been?"

"What's with the coat?"

"What gives?"

Mikey felt a shadow of a grin cross his face. "Ya know…" he said, trying to be nonchalant. "Stuff comes up sometimes."

"Man," said one boy, "I'm so sorry about that bullshit law thing. It bites."

"Yeah."

"Hardcore."

"I _totally_ would've voted for you, man," said one kid, "but I'm fifteen. They wouldn't let me. So I wrote you in for president in our high school election."

"I voted for real," said a girl with a triumphant smirk. "It was the only reason I went to that stupid thing. A big, fat 'NO'." Several others agreed vehemently. Mikey grinned broadly.

"Dude," said the first boy. "So, you showing your face in here today, or what?"

"I didn't…" said Mikey, virtually speechless. "I didn't bring my board."

"No sweat," said about four different people. "You can borrow mine."

Mikey considered it for a moment, but no longer. Ten minutes on the half-pipe was all he needed, but he didn't leave the park for a very long time.

-*-

"It makes sense," Donatello was saying. "People are people, and the human brain is not completely unlike a computer. There are patterns and logic and lots of pre-programmed defense mechanisms. It just…" he panted, "it just makes sense."

Splinter watched him for a moment. "Except," he said, laying a paw on Donatello's shoulder, "for when it does not."

"Well," Donatello muttered. "Yes. There is that."

The letter curled upward from the table at its creases. Smaller wrinkles at its sides indicated that it had either been gripped harshly, read many times, or both. From here, Splinter could only read part of it: _Mr. Hamato Donatello, We would like to commend you on your outstanding achievements thus far. However, in light of recent legislative action, the board of trustees has determined that your degree can no longer be considered valid, resulting in the immediate removal of your name from our…_

Splinter wanted to tell him it would be all right. He wanted to rub the top of his son's head and make everything better the way he always did when they were children. He wanted to explain that this was what he had been training them for all those years. Not the fights. Not the constant movement in the shadows. But this: facing humanity at it's coldest and barest.

He wanted to say these things, but the truth was these past few days had done more damage than anything for which he could have prepared them.

So instead, he rubbed the top of Donatello's head and remained silent as his son finally allowed the tears to fall.

-*-*-

_Dedicated to everyone who was hurt by Propositions 8, 1, 2 and 102._


End file.
